


How Far to Silence the Screaming

by LoveHonorCookie



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-14 07:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveHonorCookie/pseuds/LoveHonorCookie
Summary: A reimagining of Silence of the Lambs, in the Fullerverse. Hannibal has been re-incarcerated, Will Graham has sequestered himself in Florida, and Buffalo Bill is escalating in his murderous spree. Clarice Starling is sent to get Hannibal's help- and for that, she'll need Will Graham.





	1. The Sheperd Meets the Lion

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at Hannigram fanfiction. Dialogue for the first few chapters will be borrowed heavily from the Thomas Harris text- I do not own it, and do not claim credit for it! This will ultimately be a trilogy exploring Hannibal, Will and Clarice as being a triad of good, neutral, and evil. While Clarice will have relationships with both Hannibal and Will, I have no intention of them being romantic- I ship Hannigram to the end of time.
> 
> I obviously did not write Dante's first sonnet. Just to be clear. :)

In the ways that mattered, Hannibal Lecter was never really alone. 

It had been five years since a Fall had set him free, and given him everything he’d ever wanted- his glorious Will. Freed from his own inner conflicts, mad and enchanting and finally by his side, far away from Jack Crawford and the FBI, Will had been his in Buenos Aires. 

It was now four years since Will’s unfortunate reawakening had brought Hannibal back into custody. His incarceration was a beacon and a light in the night to bring Will back to him again, whenever he was ready. 

The room which held him- for now- may have been plain and bare, and company sporadic and unwanted, but he didn’t truly reside there. Hannibal Lecter was fortunate enough to take his home with him wherever he went, and more fortunate still that he shared rooms with the only other human soul alive that mattered to him. His memory palace was vast, and while not every inch was beautiful, every inch was accessible to both himself and Will Graham. And that was all he required.

While nothing could compare to those brief months after The Fall where Will Graham was completely and utterly his- in his heart, in his head, in his arms, in his bed- at least this time in confinement included the sweet memories of true companionship. And the knowledge that Will Graham had those memories, too.

Such a connection could not be undone, and every day, he saw Will again- in their shared rooms, standing reluctantly in doorways, gazing morosely at him through the thin veil that separated them. He knew Will did not want to be there- and also that he did. He saw it in the way Will’s rough, thin fingers fluttered over surfaces, the way his pale blue eyes sought and tracked every move Hannibal made. There was loathing and fascination, and a hunger that Hannibal knew was answered in his own eyes (though Hannibal feared his own naked adoration was also apparent to anyone who cared to see). The sight of Will gave him sustenance- but he longed to return to the heady, carnal state they’d inhabited those months in Buenos Aires.

While the days were spent in shared rooms with fading sunlight, when the day was done, in his mind he always returned to the heat and abandonment of Buenos Aires nights. The memory of Will- his Will, finally able to use but separate from his own empathy, wiry and flirtatious and wild. For a man less in love than Hannibal Lecter, a memory might not be enough. But Hannibal would forever remember every taste, every slow touch, every wild sound.

It would be enough- for now- as he lived in his plain and bare room waiting for the day Will came back. He knew Will would come back. Knew Will could resist his siren call no more than he could resist Will’s. So once more, he allowed himself to be contained, so that his dark haired, blue eyed fallen angel could find him again whenever he needed him.

Today, he was in the library, rereading Dante’s first sonnet, Will lingering in the doorway, eager and angry and withdrawn all at once. (In reality, he knew Will was somewhere in Florida- but he found his way into the memory palace each day all the same.) Sometimes, Hannibal read aloud to him- he knew across the miles, Will could hear him, just as he could hear Will.

“The first three hours of night were almost spent  
The time that every star shines down on us  
When Love appeared to me so suddenly  
That I still shudder at the memory.  
Joyous Love seemed to me, the while he held  
My heart within his hands, and in his arms  
My lady lay asleep wrapped in a veil.  
He woke her then and trembling and obedient  
She ate that burning heart out of his hand;  
Weeping I saw him then depart from me.”

Will rarely replied. He rarely needed to. Hannibal could still read every tick of his face, every blink of his eye, every quirk of his full and beautiful mouth. As he spoke the immortal words, a rueful and reluctant smile came to Will’s face, his eyes caressing the air in front of him, his fingers dancing lightly over the wood of the doorframe. Hannibal never grew tired of him. He loved Will’s face like he loved the lines of Dante- there was always new food to be found there.

As with every other day, he could be content to stare at Will from the shadows of his memory palace. But then the air in the cell hall… shifted. Heated. A new, soft, feminine… interesting smell floated to him.

Something different was happening.

Not Alana- Alana had never returned from parts unknown, hiding still with her wife and the heir to the Verger fortune. Not Freddie Lounds- even she was terrified of the beast contained in Chilton’s walls.

The other inmates were reacting predictably- they rarely saw a woman. There were the awful, low comments, and Hannibal even heard Miggs hiss out, “I can smell your cunt.”

Still in the library of the memory palace, he said to Will, “How vulgar.”

Will swallowed and looked disgusted. He’d always had a soft spot for women, particularly those in distress. “Tasteless.”

People came to see Hannibal all the time- mostly men, mostly doctors. All boring. While an anomaly, Hannibal was certain this woman would prove no different. He left Will in the doorway, however, and turned to face the entrance with a polite if detached interest.

He did not expect to see a head full of near black, short Botticelli curls, framed around large, pale blue eyes, nearly hidden by a pair of large black-framed glasses. The jaw was wide, the chin pointed, the skin pale. For a moment, all he could see was Will. The mouth was even the same full, tilted set of lips Hannibal had come to adore so thoroughly. He held his breath.

Then, his vision shifted again, and he saw the woman’s face clearly. She DID, in fact, have Will’s curls, and pale blue eyes. Her jaw was wide, chin pointed, skin pale, mouth uneven but full. Her face was softer than Will’s, her stature smaller (though Will was small for a man.) The face was deceptively child-like- the eyes were curiously thoughtful. She had the air about her of a fawn in a clearing- new but old. Naive but wise.

Her clothes were simple, neutral- creams and greys. Inexpensive, but tasteful nonetheless. Her shoes were particularly well worn, and were fast fashion- not intended to last more than one season. Her bag was beautiful- quality. Well made, well cared for. That bag was not a gift- it was a choice. It was an aspiration. The woman’s taste was innate and unassailable. 

Not Will. A stranger. Still, as he looked at her, for a brief moment he felt the room hum.

Though he was no longer in the memory palace, he still felt Will tugging at the back of his mind. Almost as if he were in the room with them. Sometimes, their connection was so strong, he wondered if Will could see what he could see.

“Good morning.” He could hear the disuse in his own voice. 

“Dr. Lecter, my name is Clarice Starling. We have a hard problem in psychological profiling. I want to ask you for your help.”

Clarice Starling’s voice, like her face, seemed deceptively young. If it were not for skin just starting to soften around her eyes, Hannibal would have thought her a teenager. A strange cross between Abigail and Will, in a way. With that face, and that hair, and those glasses, there was only one person who could have sent this creature.

“You're one of Jack Crawford's, aren't you?”

“I am, yes.” She licked then bit her lips. She was nervous, but not afraid. That boded well for her.

“May I see your credentials?

She paused, clearly not having expected this. "I showed them at the... office." 

"You mean you showed them to Frederick Chilton, Ph.D.?" He allowed a note of mocking to enter his voice. He knew Frederick was recording them. Might as well make it interesting.

"Yes." 

"Did you see his credentials?" 

"No." 

"The academic ones don't make extensive reading, I can tell you.” A lip quirk. Clarice Starling had humor. 

"You could be a reporter Chilton let in for money. I think I'm entitled to see your credentials." 

"All right." She fumbled, with her bag, but obediently brought the requested ID up into his sight. She was polite. Receptive to courtesy. Oh, Jack thought he was PLAYING with Hannibal. 

“Closer, please.” She edged closer to the glass, and he could again sense the nervous energy about her that held no fear. She was, if anything, curious. And eager to please, to rise above her station. Ambition did not always have to be an ugly thing, Hannibal contemplated, although it so often was. What wore like rags on Chilton suited Clarice Starling admirably.

“Closer.” He could see the credentials just fine. She knew he could as well. Yet still, closer she came. So close he could see the freckles that spotted over her nose and cheeks, hidden beneath a tasteful layer of makeup. Made to conceal rather than attract. This close, he could see the glasses had no prescription- they were also a tool of concealment. Clarice Starling was desperate to be legitimized. 

He glances at the ID, perfunctory. He already knows what he’ll see.

“That expires in one week. You're not real FBl, are you?” He spoke with a smile, not unkindly. There was something very transparent about Clarice. He liked to play. The game, however, did not always have to be unduly cruel.

“I'm still in training at the academy.” Clarice did not shy away from eye contact. How unlike the man whose face she was a mirror to.

“Jack Crawford sent a trainee to me? After what happened to the last one?” She had to know what happened to Miriam Lass. To Will. Had to know that Jack’s protegees did not fare well when let into Hannibal Lecter’s sights.

“Yes, I'm a student. I'm here to learn from you. I think Agent Crawford thought I could handle myself. But we're not discussing the FBI--- we're talking psychology. Can you decide for yourself if I'm qualified in what we talk about?” Her eyes did not falter. Her breath didn’t even hitch. She knew exactly what he was, and still all she seemed to fear was not succeeding. Clarice liked to play, also, it seemed.

“Mmm. That is rather slippery of you, Agent Starling.” 

He would talk to Clarice.

He raised the volume of his voice, knowing the orderly, Barney, would be waiting in the hall. “Barney, could you bring Agent Starling a chair? It’s terribly rude to make her stand.”

Barney came in, a look of surprise on his face, chair in hand. He set the chair about 3 feet from the glass, saying, “My apologies, Agent Starling. We could have had one, but, well,” a glance at Hannibal, “Usually he won’t let them stay that long.”

Barney left, and Starling sat, rather gracelessly. He began again. 

“Now then, tell me. What did Miggs say to you? Multiple Miggs in the next cell. He hissed at you. What did he say?”

A hard look entered her eyes, but the brave girl didn’t hesitate. "He said, ‘I can smell your cunt.’"

Hannibal smiled, a genuine smile. “I see. I, myself, cannot.” He took a slow, deliberate sniff of the air, lifting his face to the holes in the glass of his cell. “You use Aveeno skin cream, and sometimes you wear Miss Dior … but not today. How do you feel about what Miggs said?”

“"He's hostile for reasons I couldn't know. It's too bad. He's hostile to people, people are hostile to him. It's a loop." A thoughtful answer, considered. Compassionate.

"Are you hostile to him?" 

"I'm sorry he's disturbed. Beyond that, he's noise.” He could see that she genuinely was. Clarice had a sadness in her eyes as she answered. Hannibal could practically see the little girl she had been, tending to any lost bird or wounded animal that crossed her path, when she surprised them both by asking- 

“How did you know about the perfume?" Her face immediately twisted in a scowl. She obviously had not meant to ask about his little parlor trick.

"A puff from your bag when you got out your card. Your bag is lovely." 

"Thank you." A genuine statement. She seemed pleased he had noticed.

"You brought your best bag, didn't you?" 

"Yes." Another delightful twist of the mouth, so like Will Graham’s. “Truthfully, it’s my only bag.”

"Good, beautiful things are meant to be enjoyed.” He sensed that Agent Starling was starved for beauty the way some neglected children are starved for food. And yet he couldn't resist adding, “It's much better than your shoes." 

Clarice cocked her head and smiled self deprecating. "Maybe they'll catch up."

"I have no doubt of it." They held eyes, cobalt blue meeting maroon brown.

Her gaze shifted to the walls behind him,. “Did you do those drawings, Doctor?” Ah, smart girl. Directing attention back to him. She could probably sense it was dangerous to let the good doctor inside her head.

“Do you think I brought in a decorator?” Her face did a subtle shift. In another setting, she would have laughed. He sensed Clarice would be something to know in personal life.

“All that detail just from memory, sir?” Cunning girl. Continue to redirect. Polite but removed.

“Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.”

"The other one is a crucifixion? The middle cross is empty.” 

"It's Golgotha after the Deposition. Crayon and Magic Marker on butcher paper. It's what the thief who had been promised Paradise really got, when they took the paschal lamb away." 

"And what was that?" 

"His legs broken of course, just like his companion who mocked Christ. Are you entirely innocent of the Gospel of St. John? Look at Duccio, then--- he paints accurate crucifixions. How is Will Graham?" Hannibal plowed through this last query, as though it were not a drastic change of subject.

Clarice froze, then unfroze, then replied, "I don't know Will Graham." 

Hannibal persisted, both genuinely starved for real news of WIll outside of the memory palace they shared and a desire to see if Clarice’s sympathies outweighed her practicalities. "You know who he is. Jack Crawford's protege. The one before you." 

Clarice considered him. She did not respond. Undoubtedly she had been advised not to speak on Will. And then, again she surprised him with,

“They say he won’t see anyone. He won’t profile. But he’s… well, he’s alive. That’s all anyone really knows.”

The room hummed again. Hannibal felt Will tugging at his mind and saw the beauty in the honesty of Clarice Starling in front of him and was suddenly in an excellent humor.

"This is called 'cutting up a few old touches,' Officer Starling, you don't mind do you?" 

Her full but uneven lips quirked, and a warm and ingratiating light entered her eyes. “Better than that, we could touch up a few old cuts here. I brought this questionnaire-” Agent Starling was apparently not entirely unaware that despite all her efforts, she was an attractive woman that men responded to, and Hannibal felt offended on her behalf that she would resort to that.

“No. No, that's stupid and wrong. Never use wit or your feminine wiles in a segue. You were doing fine. You had been courteous and receptive to courtesy. You had established trust, with the embarrassing truth about Miggs. And now this ham-handed segue into your questionnaire.”

Hannibal clicked his tongue against his teeth, watching her beautifully transparent eyes go desperate.

“It won’t do.”

 

She hardened slightly. She wanted this so badly. “Dr. Lecter, you're an experienced clinical psychiatrist. Do you think I'm dumb enough to try to run some kind of bait and switch on you? Give me some credit. I'm asking you to respond to the questionnaire, and you will or you won't. Would it hurt to look at the thing?”

Hannibal preferred her eyes hard and honest to warm and lying.

“Yes. Jack Crawford must be very busy indeed, if he's recruiting help from the student body. Busy hunting that new one: Buffalo Bill. What a naughty boy he is. Do you know why he's called Buffalo Bill? Please tell me. The newspapers won't say.” 

Clarice set her mouth in a rueful smile, eyes both hopeful and challenging. "I'll tell you if you'll look at this questionnaire." 

Hannibal returned her smile. He always did like a quid pro quo. "I'll look, that's all. Now, why?”

A flash of triumph, then she pressed her lips together in distaste. “It started as a bad joke in Kansas City Homicide… they said "This one likes to skin his humps." Hannibal looked at her blankly. He could see how cheap saying those words made her feel.

“Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling? Thrill me with your acumen.”

“It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.” Basics. Not wrong, but basic.

He looked her straight in the eye. “I didn't.”

She returned the look, and again that thoughtful, considered way of responding. “No. No, you ate yours.”

Hannibal gestured to the paper she held in her hands. “You send that through now.”

Hannibal glanced at the survey, and laughed. “Oh, Agent Starling, you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool? You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You've got everybody in moral dignity pants--- nothing is ever anybody's fault. Your sympathy will be your downfall.”

"You'd like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You're so ambitious, aren't you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. You're a well-scrubbed, hustling rube with unusually good taste. Your eyes are like cheap birthstones--- all surface shine when you stalk some little answer. And you're bright behind them, aren't you? Desperate not to be like your mother. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you're not more than one generation out of the mines, Officer Starling. Let me tell you something specific about yourself, Student Starling. You’ve never liked any man who has liked you. All those tedious thank-yous, permitting all that sincere fumbling, getting all sticky. Tedious. Tedious. Bo-o-o-o-r-i-ing. Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn't it? And, taste isn't kind. When you think about this conversation, you'll remember the dumb animal hurt in their faces when you got rid of them. You wonder if you’ll always be alone. You wonder don't you, at night?" Hannibal said this all in the kindest of tones, soft and gentle. His intent was to wound, but not fatally. Not now that he finally had someone worth playing with again.

Clarice did not disappoint. She gave a small, self deprecating laugh, and those wide blue eyes held just the vaguest hint of embarrassed amusement. "You see a lot, Dr. Lecter. I won't deny anything you've said. But here's the question you're answering for me right now, whether you mean to or not: Are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? It's hard to face. I've found that out in the last few minutes. How about it? Look at yourself and write down the truth. What more fit or complex subject could you find? Or maybe you're afraid of yourself."

 

Hannibal smiled as though she hadn’t spoken. "You're tough, aren't you, Officer Starling?" 

"Reasonably so, yes." Undeterred by his mercurial behavior, Starling jutted her chin out stubbornly.

"And you'd hate to think you were common. Wouldn’t that sting? My! Well you're far from common, Officer Starling. All you have is fear of it. And if you are alone, it is because you are unique. Has anyone ever sent you a Valentine?”

If Clarice was confused, she didn’t show it. If anything, she seemed a little annoyed but was too polite to show it. “Sure have.”

"We're already into Lent. Valentine's Day is only a week away, hmmmm, are you expecting some?" 

"You never know." 

"No, you never do... I've been thinking about Valentine's Day. It reminds me of something funny. Now that I think of it, I could make you very happy on Valentine's Day, Clarice Starling." A plan was unfolding inside in his. Perhaps, a place could be made in the world for him again. Perhaps Clarice could help.

"How, Doctor Lecter?" 

He smiled broadly, graciously. "By sending you a wonderful Valentine. I'll have to think about it. Now please excuse me. Good-bye, Officer Starling." 

"And the study?" So desperate to succeed. He would give her something better, though.

Later.

"A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling. Fly, fly, fly." 

As interesting as Clarice was, he DID have company waiting, after all. He did not turn his back on her- that would be rude- but he did retreat back into his memory palace, where Will Graham was looking at him incredulously. 

After a few moments, he was pulled back out of the memory palace by a wild commotion. He heard Miggs hiss, “I bit my wrist so I can diiiieeeeeeeee- see how it bleeds?”, and then he smelt rather than saw the semen he must have flung at the steely agent. The clamor of the other inmates rose, and then, the scent of Clarice Starling in distress rose in the air, and Hannibal’s course was decided.

Clarice Starling smelled like Will Graham when she was under duress. Like sweet warm woods and autumn fire.

“Officer Starling!” He called out to her, for once truly agitated. 

She came running back to him, flustered and embarrassed. Miggs would have to be punished.

“I would not have had that happen to you. Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me." 

Something rose in her eyes, something angry and endless and hungry, and without thinking, she raised herself up until she was eye level with him, just on the other side of the glass. “Then do this for me,” she demanded.

Seeing her commanding fire calmed him. He once again wore the mask of the polite monster.

"No.” He smiled. “But I'll make you happy that you came. I'll give you something else. I'll give you what you love the most, Clarice Starling." 

"What's that, Dr. Lecter?" 

"Advancement, of course.” His voice was a purr now- an indulgent lion playing with his cub. “It works out perfectly--- I'm so glad. Valentine's Day made me a think of it." 

He leaned close to the glass, bringing his hands up to meet hers. If the glass hadn’t been there, their fingers could have intertwined. 

"Look in Raspail's car for your Valentines. Did you hear me? Look in Raspail's car for your Valentines. You'd better go now; I don't think Miggs could manage again so soon, even if he is crazy, do you?"


	2. Setting the Table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After receiving her Valentine, Clarice returns- and Hannibal makes his demand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the second chapter- again, dialogue is very very heavily borrowed from the Thomas Harris novel, but that will change as the chapters move forward. Will will start to feature more heavily after this!

Clarice Starling would be back. It was just a matter of time.

While she was not his favorite blue-eyed protegee of Jack Crawford’s, Hannibal had liked her very much, and more importantly, when she came back, it was very possible she could pave the return of the other blue eyed protegee, whose homecoming was also just a matter of time.

Hannibal finds ways to amuse himself while he waits, and it is easy, for he had not felt such good spirits in years. He wrote to Jack, to thank him for sending yet another charming ingenuine his way (only polite, really, to send a thank you note for one’s gifts.) He goads Chilton about the pretty young agent (she was just Chilton’s type, and so far above him, the rejection she gave him stung quite badly. While not ugly, he is still insecure about his new face. You’d have thought Chilton’s new skin would have been thicker than the one the Dragon burnt off, but he was as touchy as ever.) 

And of course, he saw Will everyday- his angry and eager Will, who was more talkative now that the younger agent had come into Hannibal’s life (he uses words like, ‘predictable’ and ‘appalling’ to describe Hannibal’s behavior, but Hannibal loves every word Will speaks so it matters little to him.) He is surprised by the strength of Will’s feelings, though. Hannibal likes to think it is jealousy, but he is fairly certain Will is just protective of another innocent accidentally thrown into Hannibal’s orbit. 

If Will is the Lamb, after all, Hannibal is the Lion.

What will Clarice be, Hannibal wonders.

It takes a little more than a week, but she does return. Late that Saturday night, the lights in the hall are flipped on, and a small team of officers crowds outside his cell. They interrogate him for hours, but he stays in his memory palace with Will, showing WIll how to make an origami chicken that pecked when the tail was manipulated up and down. Will’s fingers brush his as he presses a fold down, and Hannibal’s heart fairly hums with pleasure. The irritation displayed by the interrogating agents only enhances his delight at Will’s indulgence. 

He knows that if he is silent long enough, they’ll have no choice but to send Starling. They’ll assume she’ll be the only one he’ll talk to.

Except Will Graham, of course. But where Clarice is eager, Will is uncompromising. For now.

The lights go off as the officers leave, and the only light the remains is the glow from the TV in the hallway. Chilton was so angry about Clarice and Miggs, that he set a TV outside Hannibal’s cell that played nothing but religious programming all day. Truth be told, it didn’t bother Hannibal, and sometimes the musical programming wasn’t even truly awful. Chilton really was such a petty amatuer. 

Hannibal hears the click of the door down the hall, and smells Clarice Starling enter- today, she smells of Miss. Dior, and rainwater, and the same clean woods-and-fields scent from before. Her dark curls are dripping, her cheap but well chosen clothes soaked through, and she looks all the younger for it. The costume glasses are gone, leaving her bright blue eyes fully visible. This time, they have set out a chair for her, (it is presumptuous, and if it had been anyone other than Clarice he would have refused to play out of principle) and she again flops into it gracelessly.

If they ever get the chance to know each other in personal life, Hannibal thinks to himself, he will have to break her of that habit.

He leaves Will to meet Clarice. She can’t find her way into the memory palace, after all.

He is aware she has spoken to him. She sits, shivering, and he is appalled no one offered her anything to dry herself with. The lights remain off, which he knows must bother her, but it occurs to him that Clarice is leaving them off for his benefit. There is a deep well of compassion that lives within Clarice Starling. She does not have Will’s empathy- she can’t assume the point of view of a murderer. But she can feel compassion in the face of darkness.

A deep, inconvenient sense of sympathy. It could help her catch this killer she sought. It could also be her undoing.

Hannibal finds himself hoping that Clarice Starling is strong enough to avoid an undoing.

“We both know what this is,” she states from the other side of the glass. “They think you’ll talk to me.”

Hannibal remains silent. He’ll speak. When it’s not so boring.

She tilts her head, blue eyes frustrated and swimming with the hard, endless hunger. “It was… strange, going in there. It’s something I would like to talk to you about.”

From out in the orderly’s office, “Over the Sea to Skye” carries softly into the cell. Hannibal thinks the song suits Starling.

_“Billow and breeze, islands and seas,_  
Mountains of rain and sun,  
All that was good, all that was fair,  
All that was me is gone.” 

He finds that same compassion Will Graham inspires welling in his chest, and knowing he can’t be seen, he sends a towel through to Clarice. He sees her hesitate, then taken the towel.

He knows she has been told not to accept anything from him. It pleases him that she doesn’t listen.

She runs the towel over her wet, dark curls, presses in to that clean, open face. “Thank you.” Courteous as ever.

“Why don’t you ask me about Buffalo Bill?” He questions through the dark. Clarice’s eyes move over the cell- she is trying to place where he is.

"Do you know something about him?" Clarice Starling’s eyes shone brighter when something she wanted was placed in front of her. It’s a terrible tell, but Hannibal likes the lack of control she has over their sheen.

"I might if I saw the case." 

"I don't have that case." This angers her. She wants to badly to have this, to be able to hand it to him- and its just out of her grasp. Clarice is beautiful in her reach.

"You won't have this one, either, when they're through using you." Hannibal smirked in the dark.

"I know." Clarice is hopeful, not stupid. It must be her Irish roots, evident in her freckles and snub nose.

"You could get the files on Buffalo Bill. The reports and the pictures. I'd like to see it.”

Clarice’s mouth sets in a hard line. "Dr. Lecter, you started this. Now please tell me about the person in the Packard." 

"You found an entire person? Odd. I only saw a head. Where do you suppose the rest came from?" 

Clarice’s eyes nearly rolled. She clearly wasn’t one for pedantics. "All right. Whose head was it? They've only done the preliminary stuff. White male, about twenty-seven, both American and European dentistry. Who was he?" 

"Raspail's lover. Raspail, of the gluey flute." Raspail had been a truly, remarkably bad musician at the professional level. Hannibal had always suspected nepotism was responsible for his appointment at the symphony. At the back of his mind, he felt Will scoffing at his pettiness.

Hannibal smiled at Clarice in the dark.

"What were the circumstances--- how did he die?" 

"That’s not what you want to ask- circumlocution, Agent Starling.” Hannibal could see that Clarice still had the student’s habit of going through all the steps, even when intuition can provide the answers for us. Hannibal decides to be patient- after all, we were all students once.

“Let me save you some time. I didn't do it; Raspail did. Raspail liked sailors. This was a Scandinavian one named Klaus something. Raspail never told me the last name.Klaus was off a Swedish boat in San Diego. Raspail was out there teaching for a summer at the conservatory. He went berserk over the young man. The Swede saw a good thing and jumped his boat. They bought some kind of awful camper and sylphed through the woods naked. Raspail said the young man was unfaithful and he strangled him." 

"Raspail told you this?" Clarice’s face wore skepticism well. It made her look older, a fact that Hannibal thought absently would likely please her greatly.

"Oh yes, under the confidential seal of therapy sessions. I think it was a lie. Raspail always embellished the facts. He wanted to seem dangerous and romantic. The Swede probably died in some banal erotic asphyxia transaction. Raspail was too flabby and weak to have strangled him. Notice how closely Klaus was trimmed under the jaw? Probably to remove a high ligature mark from hanging." 

"I see." He could see her recounting the tableau as she’d discovered it, weighing it against his account. "What did he do with the rest?" 

"Buried it in the hills." 

"He showed you the head in the car?" 

"Oh yes, in the course of therapy he came to feel he could tell me anything. He went out to sit with Klaus quite often and showed him the Valentines." That flash of sadness and obvious compassion came again to Clarice’s eyes.

"And then Raspail himself... died. Why?" She didn’t let it interfere with her questioning, though. Good girl.

"Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn't going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me.” Hannibal paused, again noticing the way Clarice’s lips quirk when she tried not to smile.

"And your dinner for the orchestra officials." She stated knowingly.

"Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice.” Another delightful lip quirk. “May I call you Clarice?" 

“Yes. I think I'll just call you Dr. Lecter." 

Hannibal hummed his approval. Smart girl. Distance is her weapon, how she’ll keep him interested.

"That seems most appropriate to your age and station. How did you feel when you went into the garage?" 

"Apprehensive." Honest. Lovely. Somehow, Clarice wore vulnerability like an armor.

"Why?" 

Her nose scrunched up in memory. "Mice and insects." 

Hannibal laughed softly at the uncharacteristically girlish reply. "Do you have something you use when you want to get up your nerve?”

"Nothing I know of that works, except wanting what I'm after." 

"Do memories or tableaux occur to you then, whether you try for them or not?" 

"Maybe. I haven't thought about it." Interesting. Clarice could see others, but she did not examine herself. 

"Things from your early life." If Clarice would not start the process of self-examination on her own, Hannibal intended on being a catalyst. 

"I'll have to watch and see." 

With her lack of self-awareness, Clarice was not a good source regarding her own mind. Better to approach it other ways: "How did you feel when you heard about my late neighbor, Miggs? You haven't asked me about it." 

"I was getting to it." Clarice’s face did another one of its subtle shifts- anyone other than Hannibal might not have been able to read the change from pensive to curious.

"Weren't you glad when you heard?" 

"No." She was telling the truth. He wasn’t surprised, although he couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of disappointment. Interesting though she was, Clarice would not delight in wickedness.

"Were you sad?" 

"No. Did you talk him into it?" Another subtle shift. Clarice Starling was not sad, but a shimmer of pity crossed her face. The look one might have for an animal that needs to be put down.

Interesting.

"Are you asking me, Officer Starling, if I suborned Mr. Miggs' felony suicide? Don't be silly. It has a certain pleasant symmetry, though, his swallowing that offensive tongue, don't you agree?" 

"No." A lip quirk. A veil coming down over her brilliant blue eyes. Clarice Starling closes off when she lies.

"Officer Starling, that was a lie. The first one you've told me. A triste occasion, Truman would say." 

"President Truman?" 

"Never mind.” Hannibal would have to have some books sent to her. He had the sense that Clarice had probably had very little use for fiction up until now. 

“Why do you think I helped you?" 

"I don't know." 

"Jack Crawford likes you, doesn't he?" 

"I don't know." Clarice’s face goes hard. He finds it only enhances the edges of her face.

"That's probably untrue. Would you like for him to like you? Tell me, do you feel an urge to please him and does it worry you? Are you wary of your urge to please him.” 

"Everyone wants to be liked, Dr. Lecter." The shrug of the shoulders, the ingratiating lilt of the lips. What hundreds of ways a woman like Clarice must learn over her life to manage those around her. Win them over without a word. 

"Not everyone.” He thinks of Will, thinks of his inability to ingratiate himself and compares it to the sympathetic chameleon in front of him. “Do you think Jack Crawford wants you sexually? I'm sure he's very frustrated now. Do you think he visualizes... scenarios, transactions... fucking you?" 

Her lips curls at the obscenity, and Hannibal feels the odd pang of regret and a sense that he had lowered himself by resorting to it. "That's not a matter of curiosity to me, Dr. Lecter, and it's the sort of thing Miggs would ask." 

"Not anymore." On opposite sides of the glass, both sets of lips quirk, Clarice in distaste and Hannibal in consideration.

"Did you suggest to him that he swallow his tongue?" 

Hannibal is bored of Miggs- though, to be fair, Miggs bored him when he was alive, as well. "Your interrogative case often has that proper subjunctive in it. With your accent, it stinks of the lamp. Crawford clearly likes you and believes you competent. Surely the odd confluence of events hasn't escaped you, Clarice--- you've had Crawford's help and you've had mine. You say you don't know why Crawford helps you--- do you know why I did?" 

"No, tell me." A challenge in those transparent blue eyes.

"Do you think it's because I like to look at you and think about eating you up--- about how you would taste?" 

"Is that it?" Any other person would be afraid. But, like Will Graham, Clarice isn’t actually afraid of him- she speaks with a bland acceptance and mild interest.

"No. I want something Crawford can give me and I want to trade him for it. But he won't come to see me. He won't ask for my help with Buffalo Bill, even though he knows it means more young women will die.” 

"I can't believe that, Dr. Lecter." And she truly can’t. Can’t understand how pride could allow a man to let multitudes die to preserve his own self-image. 

Hannibal wonders if time will break the steel in her sense of right and wrong, or if the young agent is as incorruptible as she appears.

"I only want something very simple, and he could get it. I've been in this room four years, Clarice. There is one reason, and only one reason, I remain behind these bars, and it has nothing to do with locks, keys, or security." 

Clarice eyes are lovely when understanding dawns in them. “Will Graham.”

"I remain here because I want Will Graham to know where to find me. My incarceration is a promise. I mean to keep that promise.” Hannibal pauses. And then he decides. 

He turns on his light. Clarice blinks at the change, then her eyes fix on him. He takes off his person suit- not all the way, just enough so that Clarice can _see._

“Do you know what it is to have one person contain the whole world?”

His question hits its mark. The reluctant sympathy rises in Clarice’s eyes. “I very much know the feeling.”

“I want to see Will Graham. Crawford can get him. Ask him." 

"I can tell him what you've said." 

"He'll ignore it. And Buffalo Bill will go on and on. Wait until he scalps one and see how you like it. Ummmm... I'll tell you one thing about Buffalo Bill without ever seeing the case, and years from now when they catch him, if they ever do, you'll see that I was right and I could have helped. I could have saved lives. Clarice?" 

"Yes?" 

"Buffalo Bill has a two-story house.”

He turns off the light. He won’t say another word. He retreats into his memory palace, where Will Graham waits, a reckoning in his eyes.


	3. Interlude: Mind Palace Duet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And interlude in the shared memory palace of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham.

It was a matter of fact that Will was an extraordinarily handsome man. His face, although unsymmetrical, was delicate and sensitive, while being at the same time completely masculine. He looked like exactly the way a warrior poet in an epic poem ought to look. Never was he more glorious, however, then when he was in the midst of one of his righteous furies.

Hannibal could practically see fire as Will, muted by the mind palace though he was, hissed, “You really are an unimaginable sort of monster, aren’t you? You won’t be content until you’ve devoured me, and you don’t care what innocents get hurt along the way.”  
Hannibal’s interactions with Clarice Starling, it seemed, had brought him to a righteous fury. Hannibal couldn’t hide his delight.

“Will, I thought we had established that I am the apathy to your empathy.” This area of the memory palace is a melding of their two minds, and it’s one of Hannibal’s favorites- a garden, a combination of Versailles, and the Louisiana bayous Will knows from his youth. It is seemingly orderly, and beautiful, and at the same time there is an undeniably wild heat. Something that can’t be contained.

Will sits on a stone bench, looking for all the world like some young, entitled prince. Weeping willows hang down on either side of the bench, framing him, and Hannibal sighs. Hannibal aches for him.

“That doesn’t make me incapable of caring, Will.” Hannibal continues. “But I won’t say that you’re wrong about my hunger. I would say I’m starved for the sight of you.”

Will scoffs, giving Hannibal his profile.

“I know all about your appetites, Hannibal. I won’t have that child swept up in your jaws. And I won’t be manipulated into your sights again.” Will swallows hard, whispers:

“I won’t survive you another time.”

Hannibal’s patience is glacial. Cool but enduring. “I don’t intend for you to die by anyone’s hands, Will. Not even my own. I knew that night on Muskrat Farm that I couldn’t bear to be the one to bring about your end. And Clarice, you know, is not a child. She’s young, to be sure, but she is capable. She reminds me of you.”

Will swallowed again, head shaking gently in his stuttering manner. “She reminds me of Abigail,” he said quietly.

Hannibal nodded. He knew Will had seen his surrogate daughter somewhere in Clarice’s wide blue eyes. “She is about the age that Abigail would have been. She doesn’t have Abigail’s darkness, though.”

“Clarice Starling,” Will retorted spitefully, “Would never delight in wickedness,” mirroring Hannibal’s own thoughts from earlier.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Hannibal agreed mildly. “But perhaps she could learn to tolerate it.” Hannibal threw Will’s own old words in his face.

“Not while the world is within the reach of my arm.”

“You would have to be reaching, Will, for that to matter. And Clarice is a reacher. Clarice’s arm is already outstretched. Whatever you think of my hunger, know that a mirror to it lies in Clarice Starling. You’ll have to be quick to intercept her grasp.”

“I don’t have to be quick,” Will snapped back. “I just have to be resolute. If I don’t play, Clarice won’t have to pay. All I have to do is stay away.”

“Would it set your mind at ease to know I have no intention of ever paying Clarice Starling a call? She is a genuinely interesting person. There are so few in the world, and you know how I feel about a rarity.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “What are your intentions otherwise?”

Hannibal’s own eyes lit up. “Dare I hope that you are jealous?”

Will scoffed again. “I’m not jealous, Hannibal, I’m wary. You don’t play nicely with your toys.”

“Well, Will, if you won’t play, I find it deplorably uncharitable that you deny me company when it wanders so willingly into my midst. I never question the company you keep, after all.”

“Any company I keep is obviously not important enough to have made its way within our walls.” One of the few things Hannibal had never been able to divine is if the ever patient Molly stayed by Will’s side, or if he had effectively excised that thorn from Will’s side. He felt certain that since Will was such a constant companion in his mind, that Will must be very much alone, but he couldn’t be sure.

Still, he thrilled that Will referred to the memory palace as ‘their walls.’ It was as though he considered it their home, as well.

“Be that as it may, I have every intention of seeing my game through. If you want to stop it, you need only say the word.”

Will paused, then turned the full force of his large blue eyes on Hannibal. “You know who he is.”

Goodness, his boy was so clever. Hannibal felt want tear through him. He was so grateful to Clarice. Will hadn’t been this engaged with him in years.

“Does that change whether or not you want to play?”

Will snorted. “I know better. Especially when the deck is stacked against me. Have your game, but leave Starling intact. I’m not going to Baltimore, and I don’t have to come here, either.”

Hannibal considered him cooly. He felt it was an empty threat, but he also knew Will knew the power he had over Hannibal. “Whatever else you think of me, Will. You know I’m a man of my word. I have no plans to ever call on Clarice Starling.”

A beat, then a nod. Will rose from the bench, and came to approach Hannibal. He felt the phantom touch of Will’s hand on his shoulder, and Will’s head tilted towards him. Hannibal wished he could breath him in, wished he could slate his mouth over the younger man’s and taste him once more.

And then he was gone, but he would be back in the morning. Hannibal had his memories to sustain him until then.

This conversation gave Hannibal much to consider. If Will already felt so strongly about Agent Starling, perhaps a place would have to be made for her.

Apathy, empathy, and sympathy. It all had such a lovely balance to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm attempting to blend the procedural and baroque feelings of the novel and the show... I feel like Hannibal the way Mads portrays him just has such a lovely sense of macabre whimsy.


	4. Quid Pro Quo Begins (Or, The Lion Stalks The Shepherd)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarice goes to visit Hannibal to negotiate terms for his help in the Buffalo Bill case, and Hannibal begins to get into Clarice's head, while Will Graham waits in the wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, everyone! Real life (and the re-emergence of my crippling depression) got in the way. As ever, I am just playing with the characters, and the dialogue for this story is heavily borrowed from Thomas Harris' works.

Clarice’s name, Hannibal pondered, was an apt one. He doubted her backwoods parents had knowledge of onomastics, but perhaps her mother had a romantic streak. Clarice- bright, shining. Starling- an Old World songbird. Hannibal wondered, briefly, if Clarice could sing. 

In his mind palace, as always, he was with Will. They were in the library as they so often were (Will continued to be more talkative, a degree of their old familiarity had returned, and Hannibal was delighted. His debt to Clarice certainly grew.) Today, Will watched him sharply as he sketched a tableau of Patroclus, Achilles… and Cassandra.

Patroclus and Achilles wore the faces of Will and Hannibal. Cassandra wore Clarice’s.

Hannibal glanced up at Will, studying his curiosity. “Did you know in an earlier version of the Iliad, Patroclus fell in love with Cassandra, and she with him?”

Will’s mouth twitched into a grin. Hannibal wanted to kiss the rising corners of his mouth. “How could a man of empathy not fall in love with a doomed prophetess?”

Hannibal continued to gaze at Will thoughtfully. “Perhaps that is why he died in battle. His allegiances were torn.”

Will laughed, and the sound reverberated in Hannibal’s mind and warmed in his chest. “Well, we all of us know what it is to be conflicted.”

Hannibal considered. “And you and I know what it is to be free. Do you think Clarice does?”

Will’s laughter faded. “I do not know whether I would wish the horror of freedom on Clarice Starling.”

“I suppose time will have to tell us if she’ll reach for it or not.”

Will’s face tilted, and he gave Hannibal one of his delicious sidelong glances through thick lashes. “Time, or you, Hannibal?”

“Perhaps it won’t be me. Perhaps it will be Jack Crawford, and his latest obsession. Clarice would not be the first Lamb he’s sacrificed.”

Before Will could respond, Hannibal became aware of a shift in the atmosphere of his cell. The volume of that ghastly television dropped, and the air smelled of fields in the sunlight and Miss Dior. Hannibal wondered if it would be rude to tell Clarice her natural appeal could not be enhanced by such a common perfume.

He felt rather than saw Will tense behind him, as he left Will behind to focus on Clarice. It was strange to know that they were so connected, Hannibal’s mind had become a window for Will. It pleased him nonetheless. He knew Will would be watching. 

He was counting on it.

Clarice had turned off the volume (what a courteous girl), and was looking at him apprehensively. With anticipation. Hannibal found he liked how her eyes paled to ice when she was on edge.

"Good evening, Dr. Lecter." 

"Clarice. You're up late for a school night.” He felt rather than saw Will’s eyes move over Clarice. He wondered if she could sense the shadow in the room with them. Rather ghostly, three in a room where there ought only be two.

"This is night school.” Her lips quirked. Humor was an armor Clarice Starling wielded like a weapon. “Yesterday I was in West Virginia---" 

Hannibal interrupted as a scent came to him. "Did you hurt yourself?" 

"No, I---" 

"You have on a fresh Band-Aid, Clarice." 

Clarice absentmindedly touch the side of her right thigh, where indeed a Band-Aid was. If she was perturbed by his inhuman sense of smell, her laser-focused eyes didn’t show it. "I got a scrape on the side of the pool, swimming today. I was in West Virginia yesterday. They found a body over there, Buffalo Bill's latest." 

"Not quite his latest, Clarice." 

"His next-to-latest." Annoyance at the edge of her eyes. Clarice truly hated pedantics. Likely because her quick mind could wade through details to cut to the heart of the matter.

"Yes." 

"She was scalped. Just as you said she would be." Her eyes burned brighter when she was hungry like this. Hannibal wanted to capture that look. How like Will, when he was in the middle of a righteous act. His eyes dropped down to his sketch.

"Please sit. I am glad they provided you with a chair. I hope you know by now, Clarice, you are always welcome to call here. Do you mind, if I go on sketching while we talk? " 

"No, please." 

"You viewed the remains?" His fingers moved swiftly along the paper as he spoke, his eyes darting up to observe the crystal clear transparency of her face.

"Yes." 

"Had you seen his earlier efforts?" 

"No. Only pictures." 

"Of course, you’re in training. How did you feel?" 

"Apprehensive,” she admitted. “Then I was busy." 

"And after?" 

"Shaken." He found that above all else, he admired Clarice’s honesty. She didn’t feel the need to pretend to be something she was not.

"Could you function all right?" Dr. Lecter eyes did not leave the paper, but he felt her straighten in her chair with pride.

"Very well. I functioned very well." 

"For Jack Crawford? Or does he still make house calls?"

"He was there." Annoyance edged in her voice. “But I functioned well for me.” Hannibal looked up at her again. Smiled, pleased, as her expression of consternation warred with the youthfulness of her face.

"Indulge me a moment, Clarice. Would you let your head hang forward, just let it hang forward as though you were asleep. A second more. Thank you, I've got it now.” Hannibal gazed at the beauty of both Will and Clarice that he had captured in his drawing. He thought to himself how it would please him to see them side by side, in the flesh, as it were. 

“You had told Jack Crawford what I said before they found her?" 

"Yes. He pretty much dismissed it." 

"And after he saw the body in West Virginia? 

"He talked to his main authority, from the Harvard-" 

"Dr. Heimlich. Alana Bloom remains in parts unknown, I take it?" 

"Dr. Heimlich said Buffalo Bill was fulfilling a persona the newspapers created, the Buffalo Bill scalp-taking business the tabloids were playing with. Dr. Heimlich said anybody could see that was coming." Hannibal noted how she dodged the reference to Alana. What a bright girl.

"He saw that coming?" 

"He said he did." 

"He saw it coming, but he kept it to himself. I see.” Hannibal laughed slightly, pencil tracing the cupid’s bow at the top of her mouth. “What do you think, Clarice?" 

Clarice was clearly loathe to speak ill of her mentor’s advisor. "I'm not so sure." 

Hannibal had no such compunctions. “You know, Dr. Heimlech was once considered in the league of Will Graham. Will Graham would never stoop to pretending to predict something after the fact. Take note, Clarice- only the rank amatuer will claim post-fact propheysying. You have some psychology, some forensics. Where the two flow together is where you’ll catch him. Anything biting today, Clarice?”

"It's pretty slow so far," she admitted reluctantly. Hannibal could see that Clarice was used to be able to figure things out quickly, and it bothered her that her first big chance was not coming together so easily.

As a teacher, it was Hannibal’s duty to help her along.

"What do your two disciplines tell you about Buffalo Bill?" 

Clarice’s considered, consulting some textbook in her mind. "By the book, he's a sadist." 

"Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives." Dr. Lecter paused to look up at Clarice. "Do you mean Dr. Bloom's book?" 

Clarice swallowed, loathe to answer anything regarding Dr. Bloom. She’d clearly been told not to discuss her. And yet, what came out of her was, as ever, the truth. "Yes." 

"You looked me up in it, didn't you?" Hannibal was rarely curious what people thought about him. 

He found, however, that Clarice, as it was with Will Graham before her, was an exception.

"Yes." 

"How did she describe me?" 

"A pure sociopath." 

"Dr. Bloom is an old friend. Sometimes perspectives are skewed by familiarity. Do you think Dr. Bloom is right?" 

Clarice smirked. She actually smirked.

“I'm still waiting for the shallowness of affect."

Hannibal tilted his head back and smiled at her. “I’m both flattered at the credit you give me and impressed at your ability to look beyond what is spoon-fed to you. Let us try your hand at something else. We’ve established you have at least some insight into psychology. Dr. Chilton says Sammie, in the cell next door, is a hebephrenic schizoid and irretrievably lost. He put Sammie in Miggs' old cell, because he thinks Sammie is no longer treatable. Do you know how hebephrenics usually go? Don't worry, he won't hear you."

"They're the hardest to treat," she said, a touch of sadness in her voice. "Usually they go into terminal withdrawal and personality disintegration."

Dr. Lecter felt beneath his sketching paper, and revealed a small piece of clean toilet paper written on in crayon. Slowly, purposefully, and without taking his eyes away from Clarice, he walked to the sliding food carrier, and passed it through.

Clarice didn’t even hesitate to take it this time.

She really ought to be more careful about her boundaries.

"Only yesterday Sammie sent that across with my supper," he said. “Please read it outloud.”

Starling looked to her left. Hannibal knew she saw Sammie sat vacant-faced against the wall of his cell, his head leaning against the bars. Obediently, Clarice read in a straightforward tone:

“I WAN TOO GO TO JESA  
I WAN TOO GO WIV CRIEZ  
I CAN GO WIV JESA  
EF I AC RELL NIZE  
SAMMIE.”

"No, no. It’s like singing, Clarice. The meter varies but the intensity is the same." Lecter clapped time softly, " 'I wan to go to Jesa, I wan to go wiv Criez.' "

"I see," Starling said, putting the paper back in the carrier. She was a charming child, but so thoroughly PEDESTRIAN at the moment, and Hannibal found her lack of creativity tiresome.

"No, you don't see anything at all." And just like that, Hannibal was up against the glass, eyes on her face, person suit discarded, his voice ringing like sonar, "I wan to go to Jesa--"

And then it was Sammie’s call to answer- to Clarice’s credit, she hardly flinched when Sammie stood and cried to the heavens:

"I WAN TOO GO TO JESA  
I WAN TOO GO WTV CRIEZ  
I CAN GO WIV JESA  
EF I AC RELL NIIIZE."

Silence. While she had not been alarmed, Clarice had risen to stand erect, looking at his neighbor cell’s occupant with unguarded feeling, the beginning of tears in her eyes. Hannibal’s momentary annoyance with Clarice melted as he took in the emotion in her eyes.

"Please," Dr. Lecter said gently, gesturing to the chair and inviting her to sit. He sat as well, and folded his hands about his knee. "You don't see at all," he said again, but with kindness in his tone. "Sammie is intensely religious. He's simply disappointed because Jesus is so late. May I tell Clarice why you're here, Sammie?"

A low keening came from the cell next to him.

"Please?" Dr. Lecter said.

"Eaaah," Sammie said, and Hannibal could hear that his hands were covering his face.

"Sammie put his mother's head in the collection plate at the Highway Baptist Church in Trune. They were singing 'Give of Your Best to the Master' and it was the nicest thing he had." Lecter spoke over his shoulder, tone soothing. "Thank you, Sammie. It's perfectly all right. Watch television."

The unvarnished compassion on Clarice’s face at the horror of Sammie’s act of worship was breathtaking. 

See? He could practically hear Will hissing in his ear.

"Now. See if you can apply yourself to his problem and perhaps I'll apply myself to yours. Quid pro quo. He's not listening now."

A wall came down over Clarice’s eyes, and Hannibal could see her start to parse through the information. She really was able to compartmentalize- so rare for a feeling person such as herself.

"The verse changes from 'go to Jesus' to 'go with Christ,' " she said. "That's a reasoned sequence: going to, arriving at, going with."

Hannibal’s face beamed with pleasure at his student’s success. "Yes. It's a linear progression. I'm particularly pleased that he knows 'Jesa' and 'Criez' are the same. The idea of a single Godhead also being a Trinity is hard for the average person to reconcile, and particularly so for Sammie, who's not positive how many people he is himself.” 

Clarice continued to build on Hannibal’s thought. "He sees a causal relationship between his behavior and his aims, that's structured thinking… so is the management of a rhyme. He's not blunted-- he's crying out. You believe he's a catatonic schizoid? You believe he's treatable?"

"Yes. Particularly now, when he's coming out of a stuporous phase. How your eyes shine when you look at him, Clarice!"

Clarice gazed at him with something new in her eyes- she’d moved beyond mere courtesy and her own unyielding ambition.

Clarice Starling was regarding him with respect.

In the back of his mind, he felt Will stiffen with a feeling he had not sensed on the man in a long time.

Will Graham was afraid.

Hannibal couldn’t stop a dark smile from coming to his lips.

"Dr. Lecter, do you think Buffalo Bill is not a sadist?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Hannibal’s full attention snapped back to Clarice. "Because the newspapers have reported the bodies had ligature marks on the wrists, but not the ankles. Did you see any on the person's ankles in West Virginia?"

"No." Anatomy, it seemed, was not Clarice’s strong suit.

"Clarice, recreational flayings are always conducted with the victim inverted, so that blood pressure is maintained longer in the head and chest and the subject remains conscious. Didn't you know that?"

"No." A barely detectable nose wrinkle was all that gave away her embarrassment.

Well, Clarice’s tastes certainly didn’t run towards the exotic in that regard.

"Dr. Lecter, we have some extraordinary circumstances here and some unusual opportunities."

He smiled at her indulgently. Oh, she’d played this so well. So patiently. "For whom?"

"For you, if we save this one. Did you see Senator Martin on television?"

"Yes, I saw the news. In between rousing Pentecostal Services, Chilton will occasionally grace us with the even more fantastical events of daily life.”

"What did you think of the statement?"

Hannibal shrugged. "Misguided but harmless. She's badly advised."

Clarice grinned slyly, with excitement. "She's very powerful, Senator Martin. And determined."

Hannibal found her conspiratory tone inviting. "Let's have it, then, Clarice. What are you offering me?”

Clarice took a deep breath. “We need you, Dr. Lecter.” Bright blue eyes focusing on him so sincerely. Oh, she was good. “You and your insight are our best shot. Senator Martin has indicated that if you help us get Catherine Baker Martin back alive and unharmed, she'll help you get transferred to a federal institution, and if there's a view available, you'll get it. You may also be asked to review written psychiatric evaluations of incoming patients-- a job, in other words. No relaxing of security restrictions. And while no one can promise anything regarding Will Graham… I’ve been told every effort is being made on that front. He might even agree to a phone call."

Hannibal smiled slightly at the offering. A paltry phone call! As if he could not hear the echo of Will Graham whenever he wanted. What he wanted was Will Graham, in the flesh, in front of him.

Of course, Clarice did not know about the memory palace, and could therefore be forgiven for such a miscalculation. 

"I don't believe that, Clarice." 

"You should."

"Oh, I believe you. But there are more things you don't know about human behavior than how a proper flaying is conducted. Did the Senator tell you this herself? Were you her choice of envoy?”

Clarice bristled at the implication. “I was your choice, Dr. Lecter. You chose to speak to me. Would you prefer someone else now? It seems you don’t trust me.”

Hannibal glared at Clarice."That is both discourteous and untrue, Clarice. And please stop your infantile attempts at manipulation. I am not a linebacker in your high school, and yours are not the first set of blue eyes Jack Crawford has sent to me.” 

His glare softened as he finished his reprimand. “I don't believe Jack would allow any compensation ever to reach me." Hannibal paused and considered this newest protégée. “However, I think you and I can come to an arrangement. While I wait to see if Senator Martin comes through, you and I will have our own terms. I’ll answer your questions if you’ll answer my questions. Quid pro quo.”

Clarice’s face tightened. She looked so young in that moment. So young and so guarded. And she wanted to save Catherine Martin so badly. "Let's hear the questions.”

Hannibal lilted, "Yes or no? Catherine's waiting, isn't she? Listening to the whetstone? What do you think she'd ask you to do?"

"Let's hear the questions.”

The answer was the same, but it was so longer a challenge.

It was an assent.

Hannibal smiled in his victory, and leaned forward in his chair.

"What's your worst memory of childhood?"

Clarice’s breath hitched.

"Quicker than that," he commanded. "I'm not interested in your worst invention."

"The death of my father," Clarice blurted out, face lovely even as it reddened in anger.

Hannibal’s face softened almost imperceptibly, but he did not relent. "Tell me."

Clarice steeled herself, and said, "He was a town marshal. One night he surprised two burglars, addicts, coming out of the back of the drugstore. He didn’t pump the slide properly, and they shot him.”

“Was he a DOE?”

"No. He was strong.” There was resentment in Clarice’s voice. “He lasted a month."

"Did you see him in the hospital?"

Her eyes widened, then shut. “Dr. Lecter-“ her voice broke in a plea, but Hannibal was merciful as God and Catherine Martin needed to be saved. “Yes,” she finally whispered.

"Tell me a detail you remember from the hospital."

Just one tear escaped her tightly closed eyes. "A neighbor came, an older woman, a single lady, and she recited the end of "Thanatopsis" to him. I guess that was all she knew to say.” Her eyes opened, clear and hard like blue diamonds. “That's it. We've traded."

"Yes we have.” Hannibal responded quietly. “You've been very frank, Clarice. I always know with you.” He smiled at her, and they were both surprised to find it was genuine. “While I hope the setting changes, I do hope I see you again.”

Clarice did not return the smile, but there was no rancor in her face. "Quid pro quo."

Hannibal nodded. "In life, was-the girl in West Virginia very attractive physically, do you think?"

"She was well-groomed." Carefully kind Clarice. Hannibal snorted.

"Don't waste my time with loyalty."

"She was heavy,” Clarice clarified.

"And she was shot in the chest. Flat-chested, I expect."

"For her size, yes."

"But big through the hips. Roomy."

"She was, yes."

During their exchange, Clarice had leaned unconsciously more and more forward, pieces beginning to form in her mind like a puzzle, and Hannibal matched her- were it not for the glass, only mere inches would have separated their faces.

“What else?” Hannibal whispered. Clarice flinched involuntarily.

Interesting.

"She had an insect deliberately inserted in her throat-- that hasn't been made public." She smiled as though they were sharing secrets at a sleepover, and Hannibal couldn’t help but be charmed as he dropped,

"Was it a butterfly?"

Her breath stopped for only a moment, but Hannibal missed nothing. "It was a moth," she breathed out. "Please tell me how you anticipated that."

"Clarice, I'm going to tell you what Buffalo Bill wants Catherine Baker Martin for, and then good night. This is my last word under the current terms. You can tell Jack Crawford what he wants with Catherine and he can come up with a more interesting offer for me... or he can wait until Catherine bobs to the surface and see that I was right."

"What does he want her for, Dr. Lecter?" Clarice held her breathe and Hannibal Lecter fed on her baited desires.

“He wants what they all want, Clarice.” Hannibal smiled so politely and spoke so kindly. “What Frederick Chilton and Jack Crawford want when their eyes move over you.”

“He wants to know what a body like yours feels like.”


End file.
